I always learn a lot about people from how they plot their way around a golf course.
Emmy attacks the course with maximum enthusiasm and minimal subtlety.
Pope plays like a mathematician, calculating loft, club length, wind factor, club speed. He lines up every shot, plays the angles. If he finds himself behind the trunk of a tree, he takes his medicine — swatting the ball out horizontally so he’s back on the fairway. He drops a shot that way, but he has an easier lay-up to the green. In golf, it’s called playing the percentages.
Brayden plays like Emmy, just with more swearing and less patience.
When Brayden finds himself in trouble — which is often — he’s the one who asks me how to fade his shot around a tree, or which club I think would be best to loft the ball over it. He wants to do anything except take the safest path to the flag. Percentages don’t enter his head.
So while the others creep up on the flag, tacking left and right like a yacht into the breeze, I hit straight up the middle. I’m not the longest hitter of a golf ball and Lord knows I’m rusty, but I’m consistent, I hit it straight, and I get the job done.
I spend more time hunting for the balls Emmy and Pope hook into the trees — or Brayden slices out of bounds — than I do hitting my own shots. I don’t mind. Just being on a golf course again is liberating. Each practice swing, every shot, leaches stress from me.
Emmy spikes her plastic tee into the grass mound of the ladies’ tee on the fifth. She balances the ball on top and lines herself up behind it. The look in her eyes reminds me of every fanatical dog that ever dropped a soggy old tennis ball at my feet and waited for me to throw it.
She swings — too hard, too fast, and nowhere near smooth enough — and the club breaks the tee like it’s a twig. Her golf ball flies six feet in the air. Pope and Brayden shout something along the lines of ‘look out,’ and I holler ‘Fore!’
Emmy sprints to her right with a hand shielding her head. The ball descends on a trajectory that sees it deflect neatly off her shoulder, bounce, and finish a metre behind Pope.
‘Don’t think I ever saw a ball go backwards before, Em,’ he says.
Emmy looks at us, and we all burst out laughing.
It takes a long time before any of us can swing a club after that.
***
In the end, Brayden and I cut the last two holes short so we have time to return our hire gear and get home before Amber comes to drop Sebby off.
I wait near his car, in afternoon sun that sends heat skywards off the bitumen, while Brayden returns the Sapphires to the Pro. He’s better than me at bullshitting about why I won’t buy them.
‘All done,’ Brayden says, striding across the carpark.
He unlocks the Pajero and we climb in.
It’s almost five o’clock when he drops me at the beach house. He doesn’t stay. He’s going into town to pick up some meat for a barbecue tonight, and some more beers.
Amber Bannerman’s BMW pulls up on the kerb soon after. Seeing Seb’s tousled curls in the back seat makes my heart swell. Lovely as it is to have a few hours to myself, I’ve missed him. I can’t wait to see him. Before Amber can even get him out of the car, I’m skipping down the steps.
She unbuckles Seb and lifts him out, hugging him tight before she hands him to me.
Amber doesn’t look much like anyone’s Nanna. Today she’s in a jade green sundress that falls just below her knees, with tiny orange flowers sewn through the hem and sleeves.
‘How did it go?’ I ask, nuzzling Seb’s cheeks with my nose, inhaling his sticky scent.
‘We chased seagulls on the beach near the jetty. We’ve had icecream and a huge play on the swings with two little girls on holiday from Albany. We’ve had a great time.’
‘Chatting up the girls already, hey?’
Amber leans into the rear seat to get the nappy bag. This, she carries behind me up to the beach house, where she leaves it on the porch.
I offer her a cup of tea, but she says she’ll get going.
‘Will we see you tomorrow?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. ‘Jack said he wants to get back. He’s been a bear with a sore head since he rang you this morning so I know something’s gone wrong.’
I don’t elaborate. If I can’t find it in me to tell Emmy, there’s no way I’m telling Amber. There is something on my mind though, and this feels like a good time to bring it up.
‘I have to come up to the city on Tuesday, Amber. I have some work to do, and I need to get some more of my things from Jack’s — I packed everything in such a hurry, both of us could do with some more clothes.’
Her shoulders drop, but she doesn’t comment. I know she wants Jack and me to patch things up, but I think now, she knows that won’t happen.
‘I’ll stay with Emmy on Monday night, but if you’re not busy Tuesday, I thought you might take Seb for me? I’m not sure how long for exactly. If I take him to Jack’s where the cot is and his toys, will that work for you to look after him there?’
‘That should be fine,’ she says. ‘I’ll clear my schedule.’
‘If this works — me working and living here I mean — I’ll be up in Perth once a week to do Nathan Blain’s listings. We could make the Tuesday a regular thing. Or we could try.’
Some of her reserve thaws. ‘I could do that. When you know what time, send me a text or call me.’
‘I will.’
Amber leans in and kisses Seb’s cheek. ‘Bye-bye, darling.’
Then she kisses me. Her lips graze my cheek, and her face is sad. ‘Goodbye, Jenn.’
‘Drive carefully when you head back to Perth tomorrow. Thank you for having Sebby for me this afternoon.’
She kisses him again, and curves her hand to the warm peach of his cheek. ‘It’s my pleasure. It will always be my pleasure. He’s a beautiful little boy. You’re a good mother, Jenn. You were good for Jack, too. I never told you that enough.’
There’s the faintest shimmer of a tear in her eye, before she turns away.
***
Emmy and Pope don’t get back until close to six. By then, I’m in full night routine with Seb. I can’t be bothered cooking, so he’s having his old faithful: Lamb Rogan Josh. He eats the contents of the entire jar and follows it with a half-tub of yoghurt.
After his bath, he snuggles up on the couch in his polka-dot sleeping bag between Brayden and Pope, tucked under Brayden’s arm. There’s an international one day cricket game on the television and Emmy teases me that my son is starting his Aussie male sport initiation early.
She and I are in the kitchen, Brayden’s iPod playing classic rock from some internet radio station on the other side of the world. It’s just loud enough to drown the cricket commentary — unless there’s a wicket, or a batsmen hits a six.
I’ve steamed potatoes for a potato salad. It’s my mother’s recipe: heavy on parsley, with hard-boiled eggs, olive oil, smoky bacon crisped in the microwave, and creamy dollops of natural yoghurt to bind everything together.
The white wine Emmy poured for me tastes divine. She started slow, but halfway through her glass, she’s picked up the pace. It no longer looks like each sip hurts her head.
While the salad cools, I take my wine and sit across from Emmy at the table. There’s a plate of crackers, a small tub of stuffed olives, and a pot of smoked salmon cream cheese dividing us.
I want to ask her about Pope — there’s something going on there, I’m sure of it — but my greed wins out. This means, my mouth is full of cream cheese and cracker when Emmy says, ‘You and Brayden are getting along well, Jenn.’
‘Mmhmm. We are. We’re also taking it slow. So don’t start meddling.’
‘As if I would.’ Emmy swirls the wine in her glass.
‘I could say the same for you and Pope, by the way. What’s the go there? He’s hardly left your side in twenty-four hours.’
‘We’re just friends.’ Emmy shuffles her feet beneath the table.
Any second now she’ll start that chair spinning.
‘As in, friends with benefits?’
She smiles. ‘Occasionally.’ Then she sips her wine and puts the glass softly on the table, but with such heavy finality I know the subject is finished. At least for now.
I dip another cracker, try an olive, toss the pip in a small china bowl; take another.
I sit forward, pitching my voice low. ‘What do you think about Brayden’s court case, Em? Do you think a jury would find him guilty?’
She leans toward me, and we’re whispering like conspirators. ‘What worries me is if the police found out he was on his mobile phone or something when he crashed. I asked him if he was on his phone, or changing the radio station or a CD, or anything like that when it happened. He swears black and blue he wasn’t, but…’ she shrugs. ‘I don’t like thinking about it.’
‘He’s such a good driver,’ I say.
‘Exactly. He’s a brilliant driver. That’s why I find it so hard to believe he never saw the car till it hit him, or he hit it. Whatever. It’s just… strange.’
‘It could be a year till it goes to trial, he said to me.’
Emmy’s eyes are troubled. ‘Yeah.’
I take another olive. The salty taste scalds my throat.
‘Howzat!’ Two male voices shout from the lounge and a cheer goes up. Someone’s out.
‘Time for bed for my little man before they get him all revved up,’ I tell her.
‘They’ll be teaching him Aussie Aussie Aussie next,’ Emmy says with a grin.
‘Oi Oi Oi,’ I answer, pushing up from the table.
***
Emmy doesn’t want a big Saturday night after Friday. She’s yawned her way through the lamb and venison sausages and the fillet steaks Brayden barbecued. While the Culhanes wash the dishes, Pope and I chat as we watch insects dive-bomb the porch light. It’s an easy conversation. Life never gets too deep with Pope. It’s the surfer in him.
By ten o’clock, Emmy says she can’t keep her eyes open any longer, and heads for bed.
Not much later, Pope shakes Brayden’s hand and hugs me goodbye. He’s heading to the city tomorrow and he’s not sure if he’ll see us because the winds are off-shore in the morning, and apparently Three Bears will be going off. That’s about the limit of my surfer lingo, but I’m pretty sure it means the surf’s up and he’ll be out in it. Or out on it. Or whatever it is they do.
Pope’s headlights sweep the peppermint trees as he turns, and Brayden and I wave from the porch as we watch his taillights disappear.
‘What a night,’ I breathe into the hum that’s left when the sound of the engine dies.
It’s velvet. Stars like fire-flies, air that laps my skin like silk.
‘It’s beautiful alright,’ Brayden says.
He’s right behind me. So close, the hint of body heat against my back is a magnet. I’m standing at the void, where space drops away to form the steps. Space in front of me. Brayden behind.
To the depth of my soul, I know which way I want to sway.
Brayden lifts the hair at the nape of my neck, letting his warm breath wash my skin. My knees shiver. Everything shivers. Never — not eight years ago and not in the Pro Shop today — have I been so aware of him.
His fingers trace the line of my neck, splay across my shoulder where my shirt scoops away, then back, tousling that lock of hair that falls back in place. He hasn’t touched me with anything except searching fingers and his breath, and yet I’m on fire. Burning.
Then suddenly cold, as Jack’s voice ghosts through my thoughts.
None of this would have happened if you weren’t so fucking frigid.
‘Where did you go, Jenn?’ The words rumble from deep in Brayden’s chest.
‘I’m here.’
‘Not true.’ His hand tangles in my hair, exerts the faintest pull. ‘You’re over-thinking.’
His words start the raw-onion prickle behind my eyes.
I don’t think I’m frigid. I don’t feel frigid. But what if I take things that far with Brayden and I can’t… we can’t… How do I even start to explain the gory details to him when I don’t have the answers myself?
Brayden wraps his arms around me, rests his chin in the hollow of my collarbone and nuzzles his whiskers into my cheek. He hugs me close.
Kind, loving warmth flows through me, and as my anxiety subsides my body melts back.
He knows the exact moment I relax, because he whispers, ‘So, can we neck now?’
It makes me giggle. He sounds like Clint Eastwood.
‘In your dreams.’ I pat the forearm he’s looped around my ribs.
‘Sweetheart, you will be.’ Brayden turns me out of his arms and we head into the sleepy beach house, and our two separate beds.